Elenna Loughlin
Diana Gabaldon is the author of the wildly popular Outlander series, which tells the story of Claire Randall, a World War II-era nurse who finds herself transported to 18th-century Scotland, where she falls in love with a rugged highlander named Jamie. Battlestar Galactica’ s Ronald Moore will bring the series to television in August, and Gabaldon promises that the show will not tone down any of the racy content of the first novel, which includes the hero whipping the heroine with his swordbelt, and a torture scene featuring what she calls “non-consensual buggery.”
“If it’s in the book, we’ll film it the way it is in the book,” Gabaldon says in Episode 112 of the Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast. “I couldn’t ask for better than that.”
The show is sure to raise eyebrows in much the same way as the wildly popular Game of Thrones , based on the book series by Gabaldon’s friend and fellow Santa Fe resident George R. R. Martin. That’s no accident. The success of Game of Thrones has sent studios scrambling to find another big fantasy book series with adult themes to adapt for TV. Still, as faithful as Outlander promises to be, fans of the books will have to accept that some changes will be made. Gabaldon has urged them to relax about small differences, such as Claire’s eyes being blue not brown.
“It’s the 18th century,” she says. “The lighting is such that 90 percent of the time you can’t even tell what color anybody’s eyes are.”
Listen to our complete interview with Gabaldon in Episode 112 of Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy (above). Then stick around after the interview as guest geeks John Joseph Adams, Christie Yant, and Wendy Wagner join host David Barr Kirtley to discuss Women Destroy Science Fiction , a special crowdfunded double issue of Lightspeed magazine written and edited entirely by women.
Diana Gabaldon on soldiers reading her books:
“The books are very popular with servicemen and women. A lot of them who are deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan will go to a bookstore and pick up the biggest book they can find for the flight, which is often enough one of mine, and when they get to the other side they call their families and say, ‘Send the rest of the series.’ They empathize with Jamie Fraser, you know, he’s a warrior, as they are, and he’s fighting for the same things they are. … But beyond that they are surprisingly interested and involved in the relationships of the main characters. One of them said to me in a letter, you know, you get a weekly phone call, and usually half of it is taken up with just domestic inquiries … and it’s very stilted, and by the time you’re relaxed with each other again the phone call is over, so it’s kind of unsatisfying. He said with the books to talk about you can say, ‘Oh, I’m up to chapter so-and-so. Have you read this yet?’ And if she has then you can say, ‘Well, would you do what she did?’ And the conversation takes place on a much more immediately intimate level, because they can discuss their own relationship in the safe context of the relationship of these characters.”
Diana Gabaldon on historical fiction:
“Cultural concepts are one of the most fascinating things about historical fiction. There’s always a temptation, I think, among some historical writers to shade things toward the modern point of view. You know, they won’t show someone doing something that would have been perfectly normal for the time but that is considered reprehensible today. For instance women drinking alcohol while pregnant. I get a lot of people being just appalled that Claire drinks wine while she’s pregnant, and I’m saying, ‘It was 1743. Everyone drank wine regardless.’ And in fact while Claire comes from 1945, there was absolutely no idea in anyone’s head that drinking alcohol would cause any problems whatsoever. The thought that you ought not to drink while pregnant came much, much later. In fact, I had my first child in 1982, and I was still told by nurses and so forth, ‘Have a glass of wine with dinner. It’ll help you relax.’”
Women Destroy Science Fiction Panel
Christie Yant on reading J.R.R. Tolkien as a girl:
“I read Tolkien when I was 11. I read The Hobbit and the trilogy on a road trip with my family. I identified with the nonhumans in those books, and it never occurred to me why that was. It’s because none of the nonhumans were women, and I felt very nonhuman a lot of the time. … It never occurred to me that I wasn’t reading about girls. It never occurred to me that I wasn’t represented, because I didn’t think I was supposed to be. I was supposed to want to be a boy. … It’s really the internet that’s allowed me to connect with ideas that freed me from what I and others call ‘girl hate.’ I was a girl and a woman who didn’t want to be one, because I believed that we were inferior. I didn’t know the language for feminism. I certainly had never heard of Joanna Russ. I had never encountered these ideas before, and again, I came to it so late in life, I just feel kind of bad for that tiny Christie who would rather have been a hobbit than a person.”
Wendy Wagner on Women Destroy Science Fiction:
“Some of these essays just make you want to go out and be like, ‘If the patriarchy had a physical embodiment, I would break the patriarchy’s kneecaps today.’ … I really wanted to make the nonfiction be about inspiring and empowering women to read and write science fiction, because I love science fiction, it’s the bulk of what I write, and I just want everybody to feel inspired by it and as welcome within it as I want to be welcome. … There’s this essay by Nisi Shawl which is about how to help women writers. It’s just chock full of resources and encouragement and support, and it’s exactly what I wish someone had handed me when I was 19 and thinking, ‘Oh, I’m never going to be a great writer.’ … There’s a great reading list that Stina Leicht put together which is part personal essay about how science fiction helped her as a young person as well as recommendations of great feminist work. … I think there’s just so much positive energy in the reading list. I’m glad I got to put it together.”
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